Jude Kelly is the Artistic Director of Britain’s largest cultural institution, Southbank Centre. She is an award-winning director of over 40 productions for stage and screen. In her 30-year career, Jude founded Solent People’s Theatre and then Battersea Arts Centre, establishing it as a national venue.

In 1985, she joined the York Festival as Artistic Director and then the Royal Shakespeare Company, before becoming the founding director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. As Artistic Director and then CEO of the country’s largest regional theatre, she established the West Yorkshire Playhouse as an acknowledged centre of excellence on a local, national and international scale, developing an ever-expanding policy of access for all. In 1997, she was awarded the OBE for her services to the theatre.

Jude left the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2002 to found METAL, artistic laboratory spaces in London and Liverpool. METAL provides a platform for creative ‘hunches’ and ideas to be pursued. It also involves cross-art collaborations at an international level and developing strategic projects to affect the built environment, people, communities and philosophies. Amongst her many successes as a director, Jude’s production of Singin’ in the Rain transferred twice to the Royal National Theatre and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production in 2001. She directed Ian McKellen in The Seagull and The Tempest, Patrick Stewart in Johnson over Jordon and Othello, Dawn French in When We Are Married, and the English National Opera in The Elixir of Love (South Bank Award – Newcomer Opera) and On the Town, which was one of the ENO’s most successful productions.

Jude is much in demand as a commentator and spokesperson for the arts, often appearing on national television and radio. She has represented Britain within UNESCO on cultural matters, served on the Arts Advisory Committee for Royal Society of Arts, and jointly chaired with Lord Puttnam the Curricula Advisory Committee on Arts and Creativity.

Jude is chair of Metal, a member of the London Cultural Consortium, a member of the Dishaa Advisory Group, sits on the board of Creativity, Culture & Education, the board of New Deal of the Mind, she is Chair of the Trustees for World Book Night, and sits on the on the Cultural Olympiad Board which is responsible for the ongoing framework for delivering the creative, cultural and educational aspects of London’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. She is visiting Professor at Kingston University, Leeds University and Shanghai Performing Arts School and holds several honorary degrees from national and international universities.

”At fourteen years old I was creatively destructive,” says SpeakersHub speaker Jude Kelly “I got in with a bad crowd and things were spiralling out of control in my life until my head teacher told me to go and set up a drama group in the school.”

“He told me that he thought I was an existentialist and I needed a creative outlet to channel my search for purpose in life.”

We recently completed Connect, our (eighth) annual six-month leadership experience for 90 people including senior leaders from engineering, media, financial services, housing, energy and retail. These are leaders on their way up, average age early to mid forties, bright, ambitious, keen to learn.

“If OK is the outcome of what you’re doing, scrap what you’re doing.”
Voxpop, Rackspace.

Imagine that 24 senior leaders, your peers, were coming to where you work to understand what you do and how you do it. What would you tell them? How would you bring the essence of your organisation to life? What would you share (and not share!) to ensure they left feeling inspired to improve?

Why is it in this world that there are always people wanting to see you fail? Successful business woman and accomplished speaker Jude Kelly, Artistic Director, Southbank Centre talks here about two aspects to draw upon to overcome this external negativity.

At On Your Marks in 2013, one of our members was brave enough to ask what we all want to know… it’s easy to stand up and talk about leadership but surely there are days when even our first class speakers lack a little motivation of their own?

Greg Dyke Chairman of the British Film Institute and form Director General of the BBC, Martin Narey former CEO of Barnardos and former Director of the Prison Service and Jude Kelly Artistic Director of the South Bank are all successful …

Jude Kelly was amongst a fantastic line-up of speakers that joined us at our ‘On Your Marks’ event, part of our Wavelength Connect 2012 programme. Here she shares her punchy and provocative tips on how to be a good leader. Drawing on her wealth of experience as Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre one thing she encourages leaders is to embrace dilema – art is full of dilema and nuance – don’t run from it.